Algeria\u2019s parliament has unanimously approved a law declaring France\u2019s colonisation of the country a crime and demanded an apology and reparations.<\/p>\n
Lawmakers, standing in the chamber wearing scarves in the colours of the national flag, chanted \u201clong live Algeria\u201d on Wednesday as they applauded the passage of the bill, which states that France<\/a> holds \u201clegal responsibility for its colonial past in Algeria and the tragedies it caused\u201d.<\/p>\n The two countries are embroiled in a major diplomatic crisis and analysts say that while Algeria\u2019s move is largely symbolic, it is still politically significant.<\/p>\n The parliament speaker, Ibrahim Boughali, told the APS state news agency that the vote would send \u201ca clear message, both internally and externally, that Algeria\u2019s national memory is neither erasable nor negotiable\u201d.<\/p>\n The legislation lists the \u201ccrimes of French colonisation\u201d, which include nuclear tests, extrajudicial killings, \u201cphysical and psychological torture\u201d and the \u201csystematic plundering of resources\u201d.<\/p>\n Lawmakers, wearing scarves in the colours of the national flag, chanted \u2018long live Algeria\u2019 as they applauded the passage of the bill. Photograph: Fateh Guidoum\/AP<\/p>\n It states that \u201cfull and fair compensation for all material and moral damages caused by French colonisation is an inalienable right of the Algerian state and people\u201d.<\/p>\n France\u2019s rule over Algeria from 1830 until 1962 wasa period marked by mass killings and large-scale deportations, all the way up to the bloody war of independence from 1954 to 1962.<\/p>\n Algeria says the war killed 1.5 million people, while French historians put the death toll at 500,000 in total, 400,000 of them Algerian.<\/p>\n